Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
on the possible evolutionary significance of the dramatic increase in the
relative size of BA 10 during hominin evolution. To quote psychologists
Daniel Gilbert and Timothy Wilson:
The cortex is interested in feelings because they encode the wisdom that
our species has acquired over millennia about the adaptive significance of
the events we are perceiving. Alas, actually perceiving a bear is a potentially
expensive way to learn about its adaptive significance, and thus evolution
has provided us with a method for getting this information in advance of
the encounter. When we preview the future and prefeel its consequences,
we are soliciting advice from our ancestors.
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Just as actually encountering a bear would be potentially expensive
for humans who lack the neurological machinery for imagining and
rehearsing such situations, encountering giant Komodo dragons on the
island of Flores might have been disastrous for hobbits had they not had
such a developed frontopolar region. BA 10 of LB1's brain was clearly
expanded compared with similarly sized brains of apes and early homi-
nins. Because the remains of
Homo floresiensis
were discovered near stone
tools and bones from animals that had been butchered, it is significant
that a key advantage of a highly evolved frontopolar cortex may have
been “an ability to pursue long-term behavioral plans and at the same
time respond to demands of the physical or social environments. . . .
The frontopolar cortex may have played an even more critical role in
the gradual formation of complex behavioral and cognitive routines
such as tool use in individuals and societies, that is, in human creativity
rather than complex decision-making and reasoning.”
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was
HOMO
ERECTUS
hobbit's ancestor?
By the time we published our initial analysis of LB1's virtual endocast,
it was clear that numerous features distinguish it from those not only
of apes and ourselves but also of
Homo erectus.
Nevertheless we were
struck by how much more the overall shape of LB1's endocast resembled
the endocasts from
Homo erectus
compared with those of other speci-
